Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1887-12-24
WEALTH AND CHARITY.
The Creators of Wealth and the Civ
ers of Charity.

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ers of Charity.
There are rich men who hoard
their money, with hands that take
but never give; and there are rich
men who spend their money and
give employment to those around
them, perhaps build hospitals or en-
dow charities, and Of whom it may
almost be said that they are the dis
tributing agents though whom
wealth is wisely employed and bene-
ticially scattered. AS between these
two classes there can be no hesitation
in deciding which is the more
worthy. Indeed, it would be a gross
injustice to the latter to even com
pare them.
But does the latter class illustrate
the highest type of humanity? or
rather, is the system and the ciylli-
zation which produces this class
the existence of the class being the
test-just and benefcent? Thought
less people, and good people too,
who do not think deeply, and who
do not probe things to their core,
nor trace effects back to causes, will
probably say yes. They will point
to the hospitals, colleges and charlt-
able institutions which the wealthy
have builded and endowed, and they
will claim that but for the refining
influences of civilization these things
would not be. In some sense they
are right. In the sense they mean
they are right, but in another sense,
and one they do not mean, they are
also right. Wealth does not descend
like the dew from heaven, nor does
it spring up like the wild flowers; it
comes into existence only by the
labor of men. And the men who
have created it all, have they got it
now? Is it still theirs to use and en-
Joy? Or if one man has parted with
the particular kind of it which his
peculiar labor has produced. has he
always gotten the exact equivalent
in some others production? Is it all
still in the possession of The class
who have produced or assisted to
produce i; or has some of 1t, by
some magical device, fallen into the
hands of class who have neither
produced nor assisted others to pro-
duce? Or, what is very much the
same thing, has some class or set OF
men become possessed of share of
the general store far greater than the
portion of that store which they
themselves created or assisted to
create? Is it not the truth that,
standing between the men who
produce one kind of wealth and
their fellows who produce another
kind and with whom they wish to
exchange, are class through whc m
the exchange must be made? And
Is it not true that this last has be-
come the ruling, governing class,
who make the laws and control the
administration of them? And is it
not further true that much, very
much of the wealth which the work
ers have created and now have not,
has come into the possession OF this
class of middle men? Much, but
not all of it, is in the hands Of this
class of middle men, for there is still
another class who neither work them
selves nor assist those who do by eff
fecting their exchanges, but who
possess themselves of the lands to
which the workers must have access
or perish, and so force them to part
with vast share of the fruits of
their labor, for the privilege Of liy-
ing on this earth which the All
Father made for them.
1t is in these these two classes that
the very wealthy men are to be found
who endow colleges and charities and
build hospitals, never among the